


These Kids

by orphan_account



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Trigger Warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 00:53:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11002548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: I had a hard day at work today.Kids are amazing, adults suck, the end.Warnings for this chapter include: Child Self-Harm, Child-on-Child Violence, Nothing actually described but it's all talked about





	These Kids

_ So many stories start with a dream. _

 

_ It adds an element of mystery to a narrative, in a lot of cases. It could be revealing a prophecy, or setting a scene, or letting you in on your protagonist’s worst fears.  _

 

_ The thing is, I don’t dream often. When I do, they’re the weirdest possible shit, people I know doing things they would never do and yet always managing to seem real enough in the moment that I don’t always realize I’m dreaming until I wake up.  _

 

_ Sometimes I wonder if I’m in the middle of a dream, when this weird shit happens. When I’m kneeling on the carpeted floor of an elementary school keeping a six year old from bashing his own head in because he didn’t get the lunch he wanted. When he’s screaming loud enough for people to be peeking through closed classroom doors to see what it’s all about, but almost immediately turn away and go back in. “Oh, it’s just that tiny little kid that always wears a hat,” they say to themselves. “He’s trying to kill himself again, maybe we should call admin? Nah, I’m sure the eighteen-year-old who has ahold of him has this handled.” _

 

_ And then they turn the fuck away and go back to business. _

 

_ When I drop off one of the other kids in the main office, a favorite student of mine who picks me flowers and tells me I’m his best friend (which should honestly be sad but coming from him it’s so, so sweet), and the secretaries tell him to sit down like they’re already sure of the crime he committed. When it took us three quarters of a year to figure out he’s been being bullied because all of the teachers assumed he’d been instigating it all. When people wonder why he’s angry, when everyone looks down at him like he’s already a lost cause.  _

 

_ If this is a dream, it sure is a fucked-up one.  _

 

_ There’s this little girl, too, that has a sort of...fixation with me? It’s the strangest thing. She’s hit me with a jump rope hard enough to bring tears to my eyes, thrown rocks at me, punched me in the face more than once, but she  _ loves _ me. She’s asked me more than once to take me home with her, called me mommy, told me she didn’t want to go home. I don’t really want to wonder why.  _

 

_ She’s six, just like that little boy with the self-injurious behaviors. Once, she hit another little girl with a chair just because she felt like it, then laughed when the girl she hit cried.Of course, that little girl had forgotten about it ten minutes later. She’s like that. She’s so desperate for attention that she’ll walk into the middle of the sort of tantruming situation that even the adults of terrified of getting close to, just because she wants some attention. That one’s pretty clearly on her parents; even when school staff are watching, they’ll just completely ignore her. It’s like they gave up halfway through on having a daughter, and that an iPad and the occasional meal would definitely be enough to raise her with no issues.  _

 

_ You walk into our classroom and it looks like absolute chaos. Every object in the classroom that doesn’t have to be on the floor is up and out of reach because otherwise, it would be thrown. At any given time, we could be restraining a student that is enough of a threat to themselves or others that we can’t even get them into a padded room.  _

 

_ But the usual staff get together after all the kids leave, the kids that everyone sees as a lost cause or as a future criminal, and we  _ celebrate _.  _

 

_ “I haven’t had to put him in a hold for a whole week!” _

 

_ “She only called the other kids assholes today instead of hitting them!” _

 

_ “I left him alone in his classroom for five minutes and he did great! He just sat there at his table, didn’t even try to hurt anyone!” _

 

_ “Guys, get this, his mom actually responded to my message! She said she’d be willing to have a meeting! Oh, I hope she actually shows up!” _

 

_ And holy hell, are those victories. Those of you that don’t know about this situation, who have never spent time with “Behavior Kids”, probably thought I was joking about the kinds of things we call a win. And that’s  _ exactly _ what holding them back!  _

 

_ By “them”, I mean the adults. The teachers, the parents, the everyday role models. This kind of thinking is what’s holding them back from seeing real potential. The thought that these baby steps aren’t victories, because they  _ are _. God, they are. When a kid who was having to be held down to keep him from splitting his own skull open every single day goes a straight week without an incident, hell yeah it’s a win! When a kid who couldn’t even be trusted to walk from class to class without trying to run away from school chooses to sit on the floor instead of in his chair, it’s a damn victory that he’s  _ sitting in class _. (Let alone math class with your bitchy ass, unnamed teacher.)  _

 

_ Now, I started out talking about dreams. That wasn’t just a lead-in. Dreams can be when you’re asleep, sure, but what about your dreams for the future? _

 

_ Have you ever been looked at like you could never hope to get there? _

 

_ I haven’t. Not really. _

 

_ But damn it, these kids can fucking get there. They can be police officers instead of prisoners, they can be firefighters instead of arsonists, they can damn well be Target cashiers if that’s their life goal!  _

 

_ I get that they’re frustrating. I get that they’re disrespectful. These kids have hit, kicked, bit, and spit on me. They’ve punched me in the eye, they’ve pulled my hair, they’ve called me names I never expected to hear out of the mouth of a Kindergartener. But I  _ still _ love them. These kids have so much to offer. So much kindness, so much friendship, so many awfully-constructed knock-knock jokes delivered in a far-too-excited tone of voice. They’ll bring you flowers, they’ll tell you you’re beautiful, they’ll be very excited about the baby they’re sure is in your tummy even though the baby is actually just goldfish crackers and nachos.  _

 

_ Please don’t ever look at these kids like their dreams of even normalcy are impossible.  _

 

_ Please let them become as exemplary as they truly are. _


End file.
